The Department of Plant Pathology at Nanjing Agricultural University has a long profound history and roots from the Plant Pathology Lab established at JinLing University in 1916. It is the birthplace of modern Plant Pathology and Plant Quarantine in China. In the nearly 100 years of its history, the department has tremendous contributions to the plant pathology in China and throughout the world through high quality education, research and social service. Through generations of efforts, the Department of Plant Pathology at Nanjing Agricultural University was recognized as one of the best department of modern plant pathology in China.

The new Plant Pathology Department was founded in year 2000 within the College of Plant Protection. The new department consists of nine independent labs studying plant diseases of fungi, oomycete, bacteria, virus and nematode, plant disease resistance and management. The department currently has 34 faculty and staff members (including 15 professors and 9 associate professors), and over 100 graduate students. The department was certified as the national key discipline in 2007 and the key discipline of Jiangsu Province in 2002. Faculties have received outstanding national awards and distinguished scholars, including 3 Distinguished Yangtse River Scholars, 4 Distinguished Young Scholars of the National Science Foundation and 2 Young TopNotch Talents.

The mission of the Department of Plant Pathology is to build leading edge research groups in the basic and applied science on plant diseases and plant-microbe interactions, to train undergraduate and graduate students and post-doctors through a creative and challenging educational environment, and to advance their capability to serve the state and local economic priorities. The department has extensive and in-depth international academic cooperation and exchanges with numerous top universities and institutions from the United States, British, France, the Netherlands, South Korea, Australia, Canada and other countries. Teachers and students went abroad to collaborate and study very actively and 80% of professional teachers in the department have more than one year of study abroad. The acitve international cooperation and exchange promoted the international level scientific research and education for the department.